The study found in Portugal a total of 40 scaleups, thus firms already able to attract the aforementioned level of financing and correspondingly positioned to generate employment and wealth, which had attracted around €156 million in funding since their respective startups at an average of €3.9 million per firm.


The report makes a comparison with the United Kingdom with a population total six times greater than Portugal’s and which reports ten times more of these scaleups than Portugal. Nevertheless, Germany and France, with populations nine and six times bigger than their southern European counterpart, attain only five times such new small and medium sized companies than Portugal with the latter’s number of scaleups around half those reported by their larger peers, Spain and Italy.


The SEP Monitor report also identified a further 24 companies that had attained financing of between five hundred thousand and one million dollars with Lisbon clustering such firms.


17 firms or 42% of the scaleups are located in the Lisbon region and accounting for 60% of total investment. In turn, Oporto was the location for a further 28% of these new technology firms with the remaining twelve dotted around the country.


"Since the end of the financial crisis, Portugal has emerged rapidly on the European map of startups" with the “good news being that this young ecosystem is proving able to produce tangible results” the report quotes study coordinator Alberto Onetti in conclusion.